Review Summary: Believe it or not, Death Metal isn't always about playing guitars that look like weapons and writing lyrics about serial killers.
This album is a lot of things to me, but most importantly it was a revolution. Prior to discovering Arch Enemy my musical tastes were mostly comprised of mainstream pop punk and "post hardcore" bands such as The Used, My Chemical Romance and From First to Last. In all honesty, the heaviest music that I listened to before Arch Enemy was Slipknot. Rise of the Tyrant was needless to say, a life altering experience. Being one that considered the Slipknot hit "Duality" to be a pretty heavy song, listening to "Vultures" for the first time was like having my face melted off by a blowtorch. Never before had I been a fan of screaming and growling but in a few short days I was completely immersed in the brutal soundscapes of Death Metal.
And now that the utterly self indulgent and rather pointless introduction is over, I will now attempt to describe this album.
Rise of the Tyrant is everything that Melodic Death Metal should be. Many bands these days pretend to be Melo-death but everything they produce ends up being 45 minutes of bland and tasteless guitar riffs ineffectively littered with 2 second melodic fills. It seems that Melo-death is taking on an increasingly formulaic approach-
1. Buy guitar that looks (and can be used as) a weapon
2. Tune the guitar to B (or A)
3. Dial in some ridiculous distortion
4. Raid the zoo at night for a gorilla to play drums
5. Hit the open strings a couple thousand times while the gorilla pounds out some blast beat and your vocalist yells something unintelligible into a mic.
6. Add some three note melodic fill from G minor and call it Melo-death
7. Upload some tracks to your Myspace and let the illegal downloads roll in...
Arch Enemy totally obliterates the incredibly low Melodic Death Metal standards... in just the first five minutes. The rest is just mindless overkill in which the Amott brothers eviscerate the meager competition and Angela Gossow eats the flesh off of their bones.
The Amott brothers are, without question, the highlight of the album. Michael has obvious experience in the field, being one of the original guitarists of Carcass and Christopher has a similar affinity with the guitar. Apparently being a six-string god runs in the family. EVERY song on the album is strewn with skull-crushing riffs, lethal melodies and off course flesh rending solos. However, nothing can prepare you for Vultures, perhaps the greatest Death Metal song... ever. Kicked off by a spine-chilling dual guitar fill and then launched into several terrifying riffs littered with not one, not two but three face-melter solos. It’s about 7 minutes of brutality that you will never forget.
The Amotts are not the only members of the band that give an outstanding performance on this album. Daniel Erlandsson beats the living *** out of his drum kit throughout the entirety of this album, and as soon as he finishes that, he beats the dead *** out of his kit too. Unlike most drummers of the genre, Daniel does not solely rely on the double bass pedal to pull him through; he unfailingly deploys every sonic weapon at his disposal. Rise of the Tyrant is coated with wicked snare hits and explosive tom fills, but as with the guitar Daniel's true talent is revealed in "Vultures," starting with the brief but brutal drum solo at the end of the guitar intro and leaping headfirst into a frothing sea of percussive chaos.
After listening to the album a countless number of times, I have come to the realization that Angela Gossow is not an important member of the band. Sure, she writes decent lyrics and hell, it’s not every day a woman steps up to the mic and sings Death Metal but she's not really an outstanding vocalist and to be honest, she indulges in vocal effects a bit too much. I'm not trying to sound sexist, but Angela actually does spoil the band's reputation a bit. Many people I have encountered simply wont take Arch Enemy seriously for the sole reason that the singer is female, and the whole band comes off as some big gimmick to people who aren't huge fans of Death Metal.
I would include some sort of honorary bass section for Sharlee D'angelo but truth be told, its like he does not exist on this album, but its hard to care about the lack of bass when you're caught up in the dual guitar storm of the album.
I am aware that I'm only 14 and my reviews suck and my opinions on this site aren't worth a *** to anyone, but this album is ferocious as ***, and definitely worth your time, even if you aren't a fan of the genre.
Recommended Tracks:
The Last Enemy
Rise of the Tyrant
Revolution Begins
Necessary Track:
Vultures
